Angie (1994) User Reviews

Good-natured, a pleasant parent's movie...

[Cephyran · 6/10 · 13 September 2004]

I'm a guy, and as such, chick flicks aren't my forte. However, having watched this movie with my family, I can say it's not half bad. Geena Davis is an intriguing actress. She always has a decent, good-natured way about her characters, and that really shows through in this film. It's an effective story about coping with family issues in an Italian-American family. Davis' title character has to deal with raising a newborn without the support of the child's father, and that throws everything in her life into a tailspin.

I wouldn't exactly say it's a memorable work on Davis' resume, but it's a quality movie none the less. I'd recommend it as a family movie, more for the parents than the children.

Gandolfini--Rispoli--Aida Turturro--Sound familiar, kiddies?

[ween-3 · 5/10 · 6 March 2001]

So THIS is where they concocted the cast for the "Sopranos". Go figure. Three of the character actor cast members go on to the best show on television. And "Geena Davis", a damned Oscar winner, gets saddled with the "Geena Davis Show". If Geena Davis were Italian..I guess she'd have landed the Edie Falco role. I think there ought to be a Congressional inquiry into the matter. Something tells me that during the shoot for "Angie", David Chase was standing on a grassy knoll...hey...call me a conspiracy theorist...but I'll be willing to bet I'm right. Back and to the left..back and to the left.....

Unbelievably muddled, but Geena is always worth a look...

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 30 March 2008]

Comedy-drama from talented if erratic director Martha Coolidge concerns a modern Italian-American working woman in Brooklyn, pregnant and unmarried, finding herself curious about the mother who abandoned her and her father years before. Begins brightly, with Geena Davis seemingly well-cast in the lead, but it quickly becomes mired in colorless sub-plots (including the woman's resentful best friend and her abusive husband, a schizophrenic mother, a needy stepmother, a malformed infant, and a married boyfriend!). By the midway point, Davis begins to struggle in her role, pushing her pivotal moments too hard and losing her innate likability. Worse, this scenario is far too neat and tidy--and when the actors aren't being overly 'cute', they're screaming senselessly at each other. Sadly, "Angie" bombs out. *1/2 from ****

Good

[manitobaman81 · 7/10 · 22 August 2014]

It will bring you to tears and make you laugh. Angie lives in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn and dreams of a better life than everyone she knows. When she finds that she is pregnant by her boyfriend Vinnie, she decides that she will have the baby, but not Vinnie as a husband. This turns the entire neighborhood upside down and starts her on a journey of self discovery. This kind of sentimental character piece needs a tight focus so all of the nuances of the characters shine through. The characters in this film have a lot of depth, and that makes all the difference. I give this one a rating of 7 out of 10.

Let's just introduce 15 subplots and abandon them all

[BenjCarr · 3/10 · 25 June 1999]

Though Geena Davis is a great actress, good at playing particularly strong-willed women, the screenplay for "Angie" just meanders all over the place, from light comedy to the staunchest of melodramas.

I mean, what kind of a movie has a woman go into labor while gyrating in a Santa Claus suit then show her give birth to a one-armed baby, get abandoned by her married lover, watch as her stepmother breast-feeds the one-armed baby, abandons said baby, finds her long-lost mother (who it turns out is a schizophrenic), learns that one-armed baby is in a coma... all in about 15 minutes.

This was one of the most uneven films I've ever seen. Turturro's particularly good in it as the best friend, yet her character is left out of the final half hour, though she's a central character, and never returned to. Rea and Gandolfini's potentials are completely wasted in a movie that just doesn't seem to know what to do with itself.

A film about an Italian families struggles in Brooklyn New York that works

[Ed-Shullivan · 7/10 · 24 February 2015]

This is a nice drama set in Brooklyn New York in the 1990's starring Geena Davis as Angie Scacciapensieri. The film opens up in the early 1970's on the neighborhood streets of Brooklyn New York where a bunch of pre-teen girls are playing their 45 records on the front porch and teasing little Angie about how they know that her wacko mom was caught dancing in the snow in nothing but her underwear and how she disappeared out of Angie's life when she was just 3 years old. All Angie has to remember her mommy is a picture she treasures of the two of them. Angie's best friend Tina (played by Aida Turturro) protects Angie from the girl bullies and then the film fast forwards to the 1990's where the two (now) ladies are still best friends working in an office.

Tina is now married to the foul mouthed Jerry (played by Michael Rispoli) and they have two children. Angie is in a relationship with Vinnie (played by the late James Gandolfini) who owns his own plumbing business. Besides the three of the four actors being later connected with the 1999 television crime drama series The Sopranos, the friends and lovers all have an Italian background and stick to their own Brooklyn neighborhood. Angie discovers she is pregnant and when she tells her boyfriend Vinnie he is ecstatic and proposes marriage. This is a life changing drama in an Italian Brooklyn neighborhood not just for Angie, but also for her friends and family. One day Angie is a single lady working in a New York office and the next day she finds herself pregnant and engaged to be married to Vinnie. This is a trigger point for Angie and it brings up feelings deep inside of her that lead her to resent her own father Frank (played by Philip Bosco) and her stepmother Kathy (played by Jenny O'Hara) who raised Angie after her own mother abruptly left her at the age of three (3). Angie proceeds to push her father, stepmother, fiancée Vinnie and even her best friend Tina away. After bumping in to a stranger in a museum she starts an affair with this Irishman named Noel Riordan (played by Stephen Rea) and eventually she tells Noel that she is pregnant with her ex-fiancé's child. Noel takes it all in stride and continues his relationship with Angie throughout her nine month pregnancy.

I don't want to provide a spoiler alert so I will just say that the last 30 minutes of the film is where Angie finds out to what extent her family and friends will really go to for one another. This support group gives her the inner strength to make the decisions that we all think we would also make if we found ourselves in the same circumstances. This is a good drama for Geena Davis to star in and she does a great job in the lead role as Angie. James Gandolfini's role as Vinnie the plumber (when he still had hair) shows that edgy side giving us an early peek in to his latter role as Tony Soprano that can just explode, as well as that kinder side of Tony Soprano who loves his family and will be there for them when he is needed regardless of the circumstances.

Aida Turturro, Michael Rispoli, Stephen Rea, Philip Bosco and Jenny O'Hara all add depth of their respective characters to this warm and loving film Angie and all of these characters make us feel as if we are involved in their scenes. It will make you want to provide your own two cents to Angie on what she should do. One of the qualities I look for when writing a film review is if the film can keep my attention, or does the film have intermittent scenes that allow the mind to wander? Angie kept me enthralled from the get go and it wasover before I knew it some 107 minutes later. Heck even the wife stayed awake for this late night movie drama and she rated it a 7 also! I rate the film a 7 out of 10. It is a nice piece of film depicting the 1990s' lifestyle in Brooklyn New York for an Italian family classic film genre.

A good movie for exploring adoption issues.

[Kay-18 · 14 January 1999]

The protagonist (Geena Davis) was told she was abandoned by her mother, grew up with secrecy surrounding the whereabouts of her mother, was lied to, and felt abandonment issues that she had to deal with -- much like an adoptee. Her stepmother tried to pretend she was the mother of Gina's charactor. Geena's character left her own baby for awhile, but regretted it later. One amazing and gratifying detail for me is when the step-mother character admitted that Geena's charactor was the mother of her child and "we" (her and her husband) had no rights coming between them (which they had been trying to do). So unlike mothers in real life, this woman was allowed to reclaim her child after she dealt with her problems. It's a good movies for exploring adoption issues.

Had potential, but was ruined by a bad script

[Dog-River · 3/10 · 30 June 2020]

Geena Davis and James Gandolfini acted great in this. But, the script was horrible and seemed to forget the baby had a father (Gandolfini). When she left, why would her father and stepmother raise her son and not the actual father. That made absolutely no sense to me. They barely showed him at the end. A huge issue for me was the stepmother though. So her step mother thought it was okay if she breastfed someone else's baby, told the hospital it was her's and named her step daughter's baby after her dead son. That is completely messed up.

Not much of a comedy, more of a drama with some adult humor

[CC_qqqwerty · 7/10 · 17 October 2019]

Sometimes I wonder why Geena Davis' 1990s movies (apart from Thelma and Louise and A League of Their Own) received a lot of bad reviews. Angie isn't even as bad as some would think.

Seeing how this film was marketed when it first came out when it isn't even a romantic comedy in the first place, it was no wonder some felt there was too many dramatic things going on all at once. In truth, Angie is an adult with a lot of unresolved issues due to her childhood abandonment by her mother. This 'baggage' leads her into becoming an irresponsible, selfish adult who does not know how to make good decisions; one incident after another, Angie is really one unlikable protagonist despite having a great circle of supportive friends and family. She even has a nice guy for a fiance - someone who actually wants to marry her when she gets pregnant. What does she do instead ? Having an affair with a stranger whom she barely knows.

However, this is the whole point about the movie. At the end Angie learns that it wasn't only her who was having hard time accepting herself. All the people who are important to her, all of them are having the similar feelings - it's just different situation.

I don't know how you feel about this film, but to me, this film is about learning how to accept own's past and how to love unconditionally. Such theme is getting rarer and rarer...

Angie

[BenTramerLives78 · 1/10 · 13 April 2020]

If I had to choose the worst film I've ever seen, this would be it, or it would at least be in the top three. Angie is the story of a young woman named, you guessed it, Angie. She lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. She becomes pregnant, dumps her boyfriend, and takes up with another guy.

Geena Davis has some good roles under her belt, but this is not one of them. The film is bizarre. I did not care for this one at all.

Angela Scacciapensieri

[Blooeyz2001 · 9/10 · 5 April 2002]

Originally intended for Madonna (who can't act & would have definitely STUNK!), this was an excellent role for Geena Davis. "Angie" is a film about an Italian/American woman from the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, N.Y. Her mom left her when she was a child & because of this she has a romanticized notion of her mother & a deep fear of abandonment. She wants more out of life than her working class plumber boyfriend (and father of her child) can offer her so she falls in love with a lawyer from Ireland while pregnant(someone as far removed from her Brooklyn world as possible!) After the baby is born, the lawyer dumps her & she also feels rejected by her son (you'll have to see the movie to find out why) so she heads off to Texas to finally face her mom for some type of closure. Yes, this character's angst & situations can be overwhelming , but real life can be like that too sometimes. The musical score, by Jerry Goldsmith, is excellent (particularly "Angie's Theme") & compliments the movie wonderfully. The movie also has a knack for capturing the New York Italian/American experience authentically. At times, "Angie" feels like a hybrid of other films ("Working Girl", "Beaches", "Saturday Night Fever", "Moonstruck" & "Pretty Woman") but it works. (This film is based on the novel "Angie, I Says" by Avra Wing. In the book the main character's name is Tina Scacciapensiari & her best friend's name is Angie. The first names of these characters were switched for the film).

Angie on 4k ultra hd

[jucsetmai · 7/10 · 18 November 2020]

Good movie good girl and i you 90's now on upgrade Native 4K and Dolby Vision coming soon on kino 4k ultra hd release February 2021

A woman seeks her identity and finds it through her baby.

[glpbmp · 8/10 · 16 January 2003]

Gina is a wonderful actress and she is marvelous in this realistic portrayal of life in New York City. In all her moods her personality rings true. The film leaves some unanswered questions but so does life.

They lied to us

[ghariton · 2 January 2002]

The video box cover promised hopeful viewers that the film contained inside was "a heartwarming story brimming with irrepressible fun. This was not so. We laughed at the movie, but certainly not with it. Telling the story of a hysterical, irresponsible and certainly resistable woman, this movie may be praised by critics but whatever quality they saw in it must have wound up on the cutting room floor. The characters are unlikable and obnoxious, the plot meanders without ever deciding where it wants to go, and sheer lethargy kept us from doing what we should have done five minutes into the film and shown our VCR some mercy. Do yourself a favour and avoid this mess, whatever the video box may say.

Trashy drama and not much else

[soranno · 22 October 2002]

Geena Davis and a few veterans from the popular TV series, "The Sopranos" are featured in this 1994 comedy/drama claptrap from Hollywood Pictures. Davis is in the title role as an unmarried and pregnant woman who decides to leave the pressures of the big city life and start over in a more relaxed setting. The film could've been a little better if more screen time were given to Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini (who was very effective in bit parts and minor supporting roles before "The Sopranos" made him a breakout star).